


Loving Danny

by Erandri



Series: Tumblr Fics [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Implied Steve/ Danny, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Past Rachel/ Danny, Past Relationship(s), Rachel's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 12:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8402470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erandri/pseuds/Erandri
Summary: Despite what Danny seems to believe, the reason that their marriage failed was not because she didn’t love him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set somewhere in season one after Danny gets poisoned, but he and Rachel never get back together. I always liked season one Rachel and felt that, even after the divorce and all the fighting, she still truly loved Danny. I wish that the show would have followed how season one was going with the two of them slowly working their way towards a friendship rather than having them jump back into bed together.

Despite what Danny seems to believe, the reason that their marriage failed was not because she didn’t love him. Quite the opposite in fact. In between the yelling, and the fighting, and throwing things then not speaking to each other for days because if they did their yelling may have actually turned to blows, it always boiled down to one thing.

Rachel loved Danny too much.

It was great when they first started out. Every kiss was electric, his smile would send a shiver down her spine, and the sex… even when they were at their worst the sex had always been fantastic. But that was back when she was young and foolish and thought that two people could make it in this world if only they loved each other enough. Well, Rachel loved Danny with her whole heart and that only ever seemed to make things worse.

It had to happen eventually, the loss of her innocent views of how the world works. Looking back she can’t help but think how childish it had been, to think that Danny would never be hurt on the job. That they would be different from every other cop family, that they would somehow be exempt from the bad.

It started with 9/11 though their problems certainly stretched well beyond then. She had been terrified, watching as the smoke billowed into the air, sirens already sounding in the distance as her coworkers speculated as to what had happened. Reports were coming in, the tv in the breakroom flashing live coverage of the wreckage as people poured out of the north tower. Everything in the city stopped to watch as the black smoke cloud, barely visible through the buildings around her office, drifted into the air.

Then the second plane hit.

She can still remember the dull rumble as the plane flew into the second tower, can still feel the vibration as it collapsed only moments later. No one in the office moved.

It was the sound of sirens that drew her out of her daze, and the terrifying, all-consuming thought that in any one of the police cars rushing towards the rubble could be Danny.

With the phone lines down she had no way to call him, to hear his voice again and beg him to please stay home. If not for her than for the baby they just found out about. It was nearly one in the morning the next day when her cell phone finally rang, a nurse on the other end of the line telling her that Danny was in the hospital.

After that, she was afraid to answer unknown numbers. Always wondering if it was the hospital telling her that Danny had been shot, or beaten, or stabbed. That he’s fighting for his life in a hospital room or worse, that he’s already dead. Every day she would wonder if this would be the last day he came home and still every day he would walk out of the house with his badge and his gun clipped to his belt like they were an extension of himself.

It would be much later when she realized that they were.

Even when she was in Maui with Stan and got the call that Danny was in the hospital, poisoned and fighting for his life and she was the first call because Danny had never changed his emergency contact, he didn’t have anyone within five thousand miles to change it to, she hung up the phone and felt that familiar fear wrap around her like a blanket. Suddenly she felt like she was back in their old house in Weehawken, talking quietly so that she didn’t wake Grace and pacing the floor as she hung up from the hospital only to turn right around and call Clara.

She doesn’t get those calls anymore, not since the poisoning. She suspects that it’s Steve who gets them, though no one has ever told her as much. She wonders if his heart races with fear every time the phone wakes him in the middle of the night, if his hands shake when he takes it off the charger. She hopes not, Danny needs someone who’s not going to wait until the last ring to answer, someone who doesn’t find loving him too hard a choice.

That’s why she chose Stan, because loving him was easy. He was the safe one, the one who would always be home by dinner, the one who wouldn’t have to sneak into his own house after working late so that he didn’t wake Grace. She does love Stan, but it’s not the all-consuming love that she used to have with Danny.

That’s why it hurts so much when Danny greets her with that begrudging friendliness that they’ve somehow managed to find after everything. That’s why it hurts when she always picks Grace up from her Uncle Steve’s house. And that’s why it kills her inside when she see’s Danny smile up at Steve, the same fond smile that she fell in love with all those years ago.

 Because she does love Danny, always has and always will; she only wishes that she were strong enough to love him the way he deserves.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Tumblr](http://www.erandri.tumblr.com)


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